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How do you think the Yom Kippur War would have happened without a US airlift. This isn't implausible, the airlift almost didn't happen because no European countries except Portugal and the Netherlands let US cargo planes use their airbases. Portugal only let the USAF use an airfield in the Azores Islands because, I believe, the Salazar regime needed US political support in the UN at the time, and the Netherlands only let the Americans use Dutch airbases because the Dutch Defense Minister secretly authorized their use without consulting the cabinet.

Of course, the US also supplied Israel via a sealift, but a sealift takes quite a while and some effort to organize, especially when the ships are coming from as far away as the United States. It took quite a while to get the sealift going, and it ended in October. So if Portugal didn't need US political support, or if the Dutch cabinet had been consulted, Israel may well have found itself in a situation where it is promised eventual relief, but for the mean time, as the ships are being loaded and slowly making their way, probably struggling to find places where they can refuel, Israel is completely on its own.

This was in '73, heyday of the Cold War, US couldn't possibly sit back and let USSR have the advantage in Middle East, that would horribly shake the balance of power and have repurcussions going far beyond Israel itself.

__________________
The wisdom of the ancients has been taught by the philosophers of Greece, but also by people called Jews in Syria, and by Brahmins in India
-Megasthenes, Greek Ambassador to India, 300 BC

Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian? - Walid Shoebat, PLO terrorist

This was in '73, heyday of the Cold War, US couldn't possibly sit back and let USSR have the advantage in Middle East, that would horribly shake the balance of power and have repurcussions going far beyond Israel itself.

I know that, but what could it have immediately done if its planes had been denied refueling rights by Portugal and the Netherlands? It had already been sending weapons to Israel via airliners such as the 747s Ishmael mentioned, but no US airline would lend its own planes, and, in this scenario, no European nation is giving US military cargo planes refueling rights.

The most important "feuling" during the Yom Kippur War did not take place outside of Israel.

There were certain missiles within the arsenal of the IDF that had begun feuling that led to the airlift. Don't confuse effect with cause.

A 21st century example might be for Netenyahu to begin daily briefings on the results of various kiloton yeilds of a nuclear missile dropped on Iran. After all, Bibi has been carefullly cultivating a reputation that "he might actually do it!" for years now.

By the way, our next "what if" scenario might revolve around what America might look like today if we Jews hadn't been willing to pay for the colonies' War of Independence. Slavery? A cotton colony? Southern Canada?

And if it sounds insulting, it is no more so than the titles of some of these most recent "what if" threads.

By the way, our next "what if" scenario might revolve around what America might look like today if we Jews hadn't been willing to pay for the colonies' War of Independence. Slavery? A cotton colony? Southern Canada?

And if it sounds insulting, it is no more so than the titles of some of these most recent "what if" threads.

Roger that! "What if...?" indeed.

Here's one more "what if...?": What if we actually ignored all these useless "what if...?" threads?

__________________The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters!

Well no one is forced to respond to someones thread. There is no rule against doing what if threads even if they annoy some at times lol!

__________________Shalom to everyone! No extremeis good. Neitherin religion, nor in science.
"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."
~ Golda Meir~

well i like what if threads because they get your mined thinking about how the world would have looked. there is a book i once read that talked about what if Israel hadn’t attacked first in the six day war, and i really liked that book, but I cant remember what it was called. im not going to say what happened because it would ruin the whole book.

From what I understood the “air lift” in the 73 war was more of a sea lift. And I think most of the supplies came from American bases in Europe and not from the US mainland, so that it would take a shorter amount of time to get to Israel. It could be that at the beginning of the “Air lift” most of the urgent supplies came by air, but most of the heavy equipment came by sea. But I don't have anything written about this its just what my father told me when I asked him a few years ago.

And agen Israel had MAD weapons that could be used if it ever had to. and it did, by encouraging the US to start supplying Israel with weapons and the USSR to stop supporting the Arab invasion of Israel. Dont you love and fear the power that some weapons give to country’s that have them.

well i like what if threads because they get your mined thinking about how the world would have looked. there is a book i once read that talked about what if Israel hadn’t attacked first in the six day war, and i really liked that book, but I cant remember what it was called. im not going to say what happened because it would ruin the whole book.

From what I understood the “air lift” in the 73 war was more of a sea lift. And I think most of the supplies came from American bases in Europe and not from the US mainland, so that it would take a shorter amount of time to get to Israel. It could be that at the beginning of the “Air lift” most of the urgent supplies came by air, but most of the heavy equipment came by sea. But I don't have anything written about this its just what my father told me when I asked him a few years ago.

And agen Israel had MAD weapons that could be used if it ever had to. and it did, by encouraging the US to start supplying Israel with weapons and the USSR to stop supporting the Arab invasion of Israel. Dont you love and fear the power that some weapons give to country’s that have them.

Here's the kicker, though: the sealift was primarily to replenish the IDF's arsenals after the action was already over. And by the time the airlift arrived, the IDF was already turning the tide.

An Israeli guy told me on another site that the airlift wasn't as desperately needed as most people tend to believe. Know that famous picture of an M-60 tank rolling off a C-5? According to him, that photo was nothing but propaganda, and the tank was loaded back onto the plane 25 minutes later. The only stuff brought in that was used to great effect were the Phantoms and Skyhawks, which performed 200-280 sorties, and LAW rockets, which weren't used to great effect because they were new. I've also read from a different source that US-supplied TOW missiles played an important role.
He cites Yuval Ne'eman, who was in charge of the Israeli side of Operation Nickel Grass, as saying this.

Under these circumstances, the war might end roughly the same way it did. Only Israel, feeling free of US pressure, may well have destroyed the Egyptian Third Army.

I was told by someone who saw first hand (my father)what the TOW did to the Egyptian's tanks and I think that was a GOD send. I know Israel would have risen to defeat the Egyptian none the less, the supply lines were too long. Israel dropped paratroops behind the Egyptian advance anyway. But I think it may have taken longer, and there would not have been the treat of shelling Cairo. Sharon's push across Suez was going to happen with or without the support.

if the US and especially russia kept their noses out then israel would have rolled right into cairo and damascus and maybe..........maybe we would have escaped the lebanese "civil" war and hezbollah

We were on the road to Damascus and simply stopped about 30 kilometers outside the city. The road is flat, we controlled the air and there were no serious placements in our way.

We simply asked a question that the US never asked about Baghdad - namely, what on earth were we going to do with Damascus once we had it? We couldn't keep it, and certainly couldn't control it. So we stopped.

Don't let anyone downplay the role of having supplies rolling in during a conflict. During Lebanon II we quickly learned that we had learned nothing about JIT supplies. Boots, rifles, vests are always nice to have for everyone.
Grantedwe had a "field day" capturing Russion er Egyptian and Syrian equipment, but integration was tough, and identification was a nightmare. You can see a shape of an object long before you can see a color.

We were on the road to Damascus and simply stopped about 30 kilometers outside the city. The road is flat, we controlled the air and there were no serious placements in our way.

We simply asked a question that the US never asked about Baghdad - namely, what on earth were we going to do with Damascus once we had it? We couldn't keep it, and certainly couldn't control it. So we stopped.

I think it was also partially because the the Soviets were contemplating deploying paratroopers as tripwire. They put a few airborne division on alert, and pulled Jewish soldiers out of the units preparing to be sent in. So basically, the IDF would have to attack Soviet forces if it wanted Damascus, which would have had bad consequences.

Aside from that, if I was Prime Minister, I would have ordered the IDF get as close to Damascus as possible, and I would not withdraw from an inch of Syrian territory until all the Syrian Jews, who were living under North Korea-style restrictions, were allowed to make aliyah.

Also, Rafi, the US taking Baghdad is different from Israel taking Damascus. Israel's goals during the Yom Kippur War were to push back the Arabs, capture some of their territory, and inflict a substantial military defeat on them.

The US, however, had the goal of completely conquering Iraq and toppling it's government. Impossible unless you take Baghdad.

I think that the Cold War aspect is interesting. Is it not true that that the USSR had ships ready to go, en route? And Antonovs ready to take off to Cairo and Damascus? That was a game-changer.

It was, for us, a classic Israeli-Arab war. For Cold War diplomats of the US and USSR, it was a classic proxy war between influences. That can complicate an objective analysis. When the Antonovs were landing one after the other in enemy capitals, but not yet at our bases, it must have looked oddly imbalanced to the big boys abroad.

I find it a difficult war to look at, even today. Cairo and Damascus appeared to have limited objectives, but were hell-bent on accomplishing them. Nixon was preoccupied with Watergate problems, and not on the ball. Jordan stayed out of the fight. And Israel was both fighting on its own accord, yet also battling a war with significant Cold War overtones. The idea that resupply from the US might not have come is impossible to imagine, as that would have left tiny Israel fighting both an Arab-Israeli war, and a proxy war with the Soviet Union, at least at some levels. That a tiny country like Israel should ever have to be put to the test like that is a colossal injustice. Some say, "fight your own battles, don't depend on the US." We do our own fighting, and produce a lot of wealth, cannot material supply ourselves 100% from domestic output, from mineral ore to engines to chemicals and a thousand and one critical precision parts. The economy of scale makes this tough for a very small land. But what to do when the playing field is far from level? Israel fighting, indirectly, the Soviet Empire? The entire free west should have pitched-in to help us, just as the faced the Warsaw pact together, and did not leave it for Norway to face the Soviet threat alone.

No US air lift? Only if the US had been consciously willing to concede the Cold War in the Middle-east.

USA airlift did not save Israel. On October 10 Israel call for help because only little less two week worth ammo. Oct 25 1973 the Yom Kipper war over. It did not last two weeks.
As for tanks Israel capture longer number in Golan Heights when fighting Syria good number ran out fuel. Israel had start of the war 440 aircrafts and Israeli aircraft Israel lost 104.

Had Israel been in real danger of losing then I think that The God of Abraham would have intervened in another way. Also, any nation faced with possible annihilation and with "NEVER AGAIN!" as their motto would use any and all means at their disposal to survive. THe world would most likely have had very conclusive proof as to whether Israel had nuclear weapons at that time. Many unbelievers dismiss the effects that The God Of Abraham has had and will have upon Israel's enemies. Confusing or addling the minds of enemy leaders is simple for HIM to do.